(1.1)1 You, who are have always been leaders of Africa, men of Carthage, noble
of old and blessed today, I am glad that you live in such happy times that you
can find both the time and the pleasure of censuring clothing! 2 This is
the sort of pursuit of peace and plenty. All is well on the part of the empire
and on the part of the sky.

3 However, in the past you too wore your clothing, tunics,
differently: they were even famous for their skilful weave, harmonious colouring,
and proper size. For they did not fall extravagantly over the legs or
shamelessly above the knees, they did not fit shortly at the arms nor tightly
at the hands. No, in a fourfold suitable form it fitted men (it was not
considered easy to divide its folds with a belt). 4 The outer garment,
the pallium, itself also quadrangular, was thrown back from both sides
and knit around the neck in the bit of a buckle, and so rested on the shoulders.

(1.2)1 Its equivalent today is <what is worn
by> the priests of Aesculapius, who has also become yours. This is the way
the twin town close by used to dress, and wherever else in Africa there is a Tyrus. 2 But as soon as the urn
of worldly lots swung around and the deity favoured the Romans, your twin town
hastened to change on its own account.Thus it wished to salute Scipio
at his landing beforehand through its prematurely Roman attire. 3 To
you, however, after the benefit of injustice, as to people who lost their
antiquity but not their position, after the foul omens of Gracchus and the
violent mockery by Lepidus, the threefold altars of Pompeius and the long
delays of Caesar, when Statilius Taurus had erected your walls and Sentius
Saturninus had solemnly inaugurated them, and since concord was pleasing, -- to
you the toga was offered 4 O how far did it wander! From the
Pelasgians it came to the Lydians and from the Lydians to the Romans, in order
that it would cover the Carthaginians, starting from the shoulders of the
higher people!

(1.3)1 From then on, your tunic is longer and
you use a dividing belt to let it hang down. Likewise, you support the abundant
flow of your now smooth gown, by gathering it in folds. And if any circumstance
of class or dignity or time makes you wear other garments, you forget and even
criticize the pallium, that used to be yours in all circumstances!

2 Now personally I am not surprised by that, on
account of an earlier parallel case. For the ram too (not the 'reciprocally horned, wool-skinned,
testicle-dragging'
animal of Laberius, but the war machine whose service it is to break walls), an
instrument previously launched by none, is said to have been mobilised first of
all by Carthage, 'keenest
in pursuit of war',
for the oscillatory work of pending violence, having realised the power of the
engine by analogy of the anger of the beast that avenges itself with its head. 3
However, when the times of the mother country were drawing to a close and
the now Roman ram dared confront the walls that once had been his own, the
Carthaginians were suddenly stunned at the device, as if it were new and
foreign. 'So
much doth Time's
long age avail to change'!

This way the pallium is also no longer
recognised.

(2.1)1 Let us now draw upon another source, so that the Punic does
not feel shame or grief amidst the Romans: certainly, changing clothing is a
customary task of nature as a whole. It is, meanwhile, performed by this very
world we press upon.

2 Let Anaximander see to it if he thinks there are
more worlds, let anyone else see to it, if he assumes one somewhere, near the
Meropae, as Silenus babbles in Midas' ears (which are fit indeed for broader stories!).
But even if Plato reckons there is a world of which this one is the image, even
that world must must likewise undergo change. 3 For if it is a 'world,' it will consist of different
substances
and functions, parallel to the form of what the world is here. (For it is not 'world', if it is not otherwise like the
world). Different things coming together are different because of change.

4 In short, the discord of differences is unified by
vicissitude. So it is by change that every world that is a corporate whole of
different things and a mixture through vicissitudes exists.

(2.2) 1 By all means our plot of ground looks different
all the time, as is manifest to closed or even completely 'Homeric' eyes. 2 Day and night change in
turn. The sun varies through yearly positions, the moon through monthly
modulations. The orderly confusion of the stars at times causes something to
set, at times to rise. Sometimes the ambient of the sky is clear and brilliant,
sometimes it is cloudy and grey; or rain is pouring, with missiles that may
come down with rain; or it eases off again and the weather brightens.

3 Likewise the sea is notoriously unreliable: with
the equally changing winds at times it seems trustworthy by its calmness,
moderately moved by its undulation, and all of a sudden it is full of unrest by
huge waves. 4 Likewise, if you look at the earth, that likes to dress
according to the season, you would almost deny she is the same: you remember
her in green when you see her in yellow, soon to witness her in white. 5 And
this goes for all her other ornaments, for does anything not change shape?
Backs of mountains run down, veins of sources banter, paths of rivers silt up.

(2.3)1 There even was a time that the whole
earth changed and was covered by all the water that exists. Even today
shell-fish and circular shells from the sea stay abroad in the mountains,
craving to prove to Plato that even the steeper parts were flooded. 2 But
by swimming out the earth changed and took on shape again, the same but
different.

3 Even now she locally changes her look, when a
region incurs damage; when among the islands Delos is nothing anymore, and
Samos is just a heap of sand, and the Sybille proves to be no liar; when land
the size of Africa or Asia goes missing in the Atlantic; when a former part of
Italy has been cut asunder through the battering Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas,
leaving the rest as Sicily; when the whole blow of this split causes the
contentious confluence of brines to be whirled backwards in the narrow strait,
and thus infects the seas with a novel vice: not that of spitting out wrecks
but of devouring them.

(2.4)1 The mainland also suffers, both from
heaven and from within itself. Look at Palestine. Where the river Jordan is the umpire of boundaries, there is now an immense wilderness: the
country is deserted and the fields are barren. But towns there used to be of
old, and there was a large population there, and the soil tended to obey. 2 Subsequently,
now that God is censor and impiety has earned rains of fire, so much for Sodom and there is no Gomorrha anymore. All has turned
into ashes and the soil is living its death along with the nearby sea.

3 Due to a parallel cloud Etruria was also set ablaze in her ancient Vulsinii, a fact that should make Campania expect even more of her mountains, now that she
has been bereaved of Pompeii. 4 But may this not happen! May
Asia feel safe concerning the voracity of
her soil as well. And may Africa have feared a chasm once and for all,
now that she is expiated through the loss of a single camp. Many other similar
catastrophes have renewed the look of the earth and shifted the location of
places.

(2.5) 1 War has also been able to bring about very much.
But it is disagreeable to enumerate sad things, no less than changes of
government: how many times did it change ever since Ninus, son of Belus, if
Ninus really was the first to govern, as my pagan predecessors claim. 2 This
is as far as the pen usually goes back among you: it is with the Assyrians, it
seems, that world history opens up. We however, who always are reading divine
histories, master the subject from the very birth of the world.

(2.6)1 But now I prefer enjoyable things, for
these also undergo change. In a word, if anything was washed away by the sea,
burnt down by heaven, swallowed by the earth, or chopped off by the sword,
elsewhere a new loan returns that compensates for the loss.

2 For at first, Earth, for the largest perimeter,
was empty and void of people, and if any people had occupied some land, it
existed all by itself. 3 So it decided to bring all into cultivation
(once you grasp that at one place a mass flocks together, while deserting another
place), to weed and explore all, so that, as if from grafts and sets, tribes
might be planted from tribes, and towns from towns, all over the world.

4 Swarms of plentiful peoples flew out. The
Scythians caused the Persians to abound, the Phoenicians discharged into Africa, the Romans issued forth from the Phrygians,
Chaldaean seed was brought to Egypt and, once
it was transmitted from there, it became the Jews. 5 Likewise, the
offspring of Hercules proceeded along with Temenus to occupy the Peloponnese; similarly the Ionians,
Neleus' comrades, equipped Asia with new towns, and similarly the Corinthians
fortified Syracuse with Archias.

(2.7)1 But antiquity now means little, if our
own days are confronted with it. How much of the world has been changed in this
period? How many towns have been produced or enlarged or refounded by the
triple virtue of the current government? 2 Now that God favours so many
Augusti at the same time, how many census lists have been transcribed, how many
peoples cleaned up, how many orders given their former splendour, how many
barbarians
excluded? 3 Really, the earth is now the well-cultivated estate of this
government. All aconites of enmity have been eradicated, the cactus and
bramble of treacherous friendship have been torn out: the world is lovely,
surpassing the orchard of Alcinous and the rosary of Midas. 4 If you
praise this world in change, how can you disparage man?

(3.1)1 Animals also change, not in dress but in form. And yet for the
peacock its feathers form a dress, a festive dress at that: 2 one that has
a deeper hue than all purple at its flowery neck, more golden than all edgings
at its gleaming back, more fanning out than any stage robe where its tail lies
down; many-coloured, parti-coloured, changing in colour; never itself, always
different, although it is always itself when it is different, bound to change
colour as often as it is moved.

(3.2)1 The snake too must be mentioned, though
after the peacock; for this animal also exchanges what it has been allotted,
namely its skin and its age. 2 For as soon as it senses the coming of
old age, it wrings itself into a narrow spot, enters a hole and at once leaves
its skin, being scraped smooth at the very threshold. Abandoning its slough
right there, revived, it then snakes its way out. Along with its scales it
shakes off the years.

3 The hyena, if you look closely, is of an annual
sex: it alternates between male and female. 4 I keep silent about the
stag, that it also controls its own age: having fed on a snake and falling sick
with its poison, it is rejuvenated.

(3.3)1 Then we have

the four-footed, slowly stepping, earthly, lowly,
stubborn creature

Do you think I mean the Pacuvian tortoise? No, I don't.
The line applies to another little animal as well, really one of medium size,
but with a great name. 2 If you hear about a 'chameleon,' without any knowledge of it, you will
fear something bigger than a lion. But once you come across one, generally in a
vineyard, lying in its entirety under a vine foliage, you will laugh right away
at the boldness of its name, which is Greek at that. For its body contains no
moisture, unlike much smaller creatures.

3 The chameleon lives through its skin. Its tiny
head starts right at the back, for lack of a neck. This head is hard to move,
but when looking around its little eyes protrude, no, they are turning points
of light. 4 The creature is numb and sluggish, hardly raising from the
ground, proceeding with effort, torpidly, trudging along, showing its step
rather than taking it. Always fasting, it still does not faint, yawningly
feeding itself, inflating itself to ruminate, drawing food from the wind.

5 Nonetheless the chameleon also changes completely,
even if it cannot do anything else. For although it has a colour of its own, as
soon as it has approached something, it assumes its hue. Only the
chameleon has the gift of, as it is commonly called, 'playing with its hide.'

(3.4)1 Much needed to be said to arrive
well-prepared at man. Whatever you regard as his beginnings, by all means he
was naked and undressed when he was fashioned by his maker. It was only later
that he grasped wisdom, prematurely, before he was entitled to it. 2 Then
and there he hastened to cover the part of his new body not yet meant for
shame: for the time being he veiled it with fig-leaves. Later, when he was
exiled from his birthplace, because he had sinned, he was shown into the world,
as if into a mine, clad in a skin.

(3.5)1 But these are mysteries not for all to
know. Come, show us something of yours, a story told by the Egyptians, listed
by Alexander, read by his mother, a story about the time of Osiris, when Ammon,
rich in sheep, made his way to him from Africa. 2 Well, together with these people they allege that Mercury, having
found delight in the softness of a casually stroked ram, skinned a little
sheep, and attempting what the easy material suggested, he kept on tearing it
and produced a thread. This he then weaved in the model of the pristine cord,
which he had joined together from strips of bast. 3 You, however, have
preferred to leave all arrangement of wool and disposition of looms up to Minerva,
although there was a more diligent workplace with Arachne.

(3.6)1 Ever since there is cloth. I do not
speak about the sheep from Miletus, Selge or Altinum, or the sheep for
which Tarentum and Baetica are renowned, where they are coloured by nature, but
what I say is that trees dress us too, and that the grassy parts of flax,
initially green, when washed, turn white as snow.

2 And it did not suffice to plant and sow for a
tunic, if it had not also proved possible to fish for clothes. For fleeces also
come from the sea, inasmuch as the finer shells of mossy woolliness are adorned
with them.

3 Furthermore is it not hidden that what the
silk-worm (a species of worm), leads through the air, extending it more
adroitly than the sundials of spiders, and then devours, is finally reproduced
from its belly. Therefore, if you kill it, you can then roll off threads from
its pupa.

(3.7)1 A so manifold produce of cloths was then
followed by the talents of tailoring, which -- first by covering man wherever
necessity had preceded, then by adorning, no, inflating him wherever ambition
had come next -- promulgated the various forms of attire. 2 These are
partly worn by individual peoples, not in common with the rest, but are also
partly found everywhere, useful to all, as for instance this pallium. It is, to
be sure, more Greek, but as far as the word is concerned, it belongs to Latium by now. With the word the dress was introduced.

3 Consequently, the very man who sentenced the
Greeks to be removed from town, but who as an old man had become instructed in
their letters and language, this same Cato used to bare his shoulder at the
time of his administration of justice, and so favoured the Greeks no less by wearing
his pallium.

(4.1)1 But now, if Romanity is to the benefit of all, why are you
nonetheless inclined to the Greeks, even in less honourable matters? 2 Or
if this is not the case, from where else in the world is it that in provinces
that are better trained, adapted by nature rather for conquering the soil,
there are exercises of the wrestling-school (thereby lasting into a bad old age
and labouring in vain), and unction with mud, and wallowing in the dust, and
living on a dry diet? 3 From where else is it that with some Numidians,
who even wear their hair long due to horses, the barber comes close to the skin
and just the crown remains exempt from the knife? Whence is it that with hairy
and hirsute men the resin is so rapacious at the arse, the tweezers are so ravenous
at the chin?

4 It is a marvel that all this happens without
the pallium! To it belongs this whole habit of Asia. What do you, Libya and Europe, have to do with athletic elegances when you do not know how to clothe
them? Really, what is it like to use the Greek way in depilation rather than in
dress?

(4.2)1 The transfer of clothing only approaches
a fault if it is not convention that is changed, but nature. There is an important
difference between the honour due to time and to religion. Let convention
faithfully follow time, nature God.

2 So the hero of Larissa caused a breach of nature
by changing into a girl, he, the man who had been reared on the marrow of wild
beasts (this, then, is how his name was composed, since his lips had not had a
taste of breasts), the man who was taught by a coarse, wood-dwelling, monstrous
teacher in a stony school! 3 One may willingly tolerate, in the case of
a little boy, a mother's
concern. But no doubt he was already covered with hair, no doubt he had already
secretly proved himself a man to somebody, when he still put up with a woman's flowing robe, doing his hair, applying
make-up, consulting the mirror, caressing his neck, effeminated as far as his
ears by holes, as may still be seen in his bust at Sigeum.

4 Certainly, later he is a warrior, for necessity
restored his sex! There had been sounds from the battlefield, and arms had not
been far off. 'Iron itself,' so
it is said, 'attracts
a man.' Anyway,
if he had persisted in being a girl even after this incentive, he might as well
have got married -- how about that for a change?!

5 A monstrosity, then, he is, a double one: from a
man he became a woman, and then from a woman a man, although neither the truth
should have been denied, nor the deceit confessed. Either form of change was
bad: the former ran counter to nature, the latter was against his safety.

(4.3)1 More degrading still
were transfigurations in a man's
attire due to lust rather than to some maternal fear. Nonetheless you adore
that man who ought to make you feel ashamed, this 'club-arrow-hide-bearer', who exchanged the whole outfit expressed
in his name for a woman's
attire.

2 So much then was granted to the Lydian secret
mistress, that Hercules prostituted himself in Omphale, and Omphale in
Hercules. 3 Where were Diomedes and the gory mangers now? Where Busiris
and his sacrifice-burning altars? Where Geryon, the three-in-one? It was of
their brains that Hercules'
club still preferred to reek, when it was offended by ointments! 4 The
blood, grown old by then, of Hydra and Centaurs was taken away from the arrows
by a sharp-edged pumice, in order that after piercing monsters (o, insults of
luxury!), the arrows could perhaps sew a wreath!

5 Not even a sober woman or some sturdy maiden could
have put her shoulders into the stripped skin of such a mighty beast, unless it
was softened, smoothened, and freed from stench for a long time, as had been
done, so I presume, in Omphale’s house, by means of balsam and fenugreek oil. 6
The mane too, I believe, had to put up with the comb, lest the tender neck
would be infected with leonine scabies. The gaping mouth was stuffed with hair,
the back teeth overshadowed by locks -- all of the animal's face would have roared against this
outrage, if only it could! 7 Nemea, for one
thing (if there is a spirit at that place) groaned: for it was then it realised
that it had really lost its lion.

8 What this Hercules looked like in Omphale's silken gown? This has already been
indicated through the picture of Omphale in Hercules' hide!

(4.4)1 But there is something too about the man
who earlier had come close to the Tirynthian, Cleomachus the boxer. Later at Olympia he underwent an unbelievable change, flowing from
his male condition by being cut inside and outside his skin. 2 Well, he
earns a crown amidst the Fullers of Novius and he has rightlybeen
mentioned by the mime-writer Lentulus in his Catinenses! 3 Surely,
just as he covered the traces of boxing-gloves with bracelets, so he replaced
the coarse sportsman's
wrap with some thin, loose-fitting garment.

(4.5)1 About Physco or Sardanapallus we must
keep silent: if they were not remarkable for their lusts, no-one would know
them as kings. 2 Yes, we must keep silent, lest even they start
muttering about some of your Caesars, who are no less a disgrace, lest 'Doglike' constancy be given a mandate to denote
a Caesar less pure than Physco, softer than Sardanapallus, a very 'Sub-Nero'!

(4.6)1 No less lukewarm, as far as changing
clothes is concerned, is the power of vainglory, also in cases where virility
is untouched. Every affect is heat, but when it is fanned into affectation, the
fire of glory turns it into ardour.

2 So there you have the great king who is ablaze
with this fuel, a man smaller only than his glory. 3 He had conquered
the Median people and was conquered by Median attire. Abandoning his triumphal
mail, he descended into the trousers of his captives. His breast, sculpted with
scaly signs, he covered with translucent texture and so stripped it bare,
panting as it still was from the works of war, and through the ventilation of
the silk (thought to have a softening effect) he extinguished it. 4 The
Macedonian was not yet swollen in spirit enough, unless he had also been
pleased by an even more inflated garb. But philosophers too, I think, affect
something of this kind.

(4.7)1 For I hear that philosophy was also
practised in purple. If a philosopher wears purple, then why not fine sandals?
A Tyrian dress with any other footwear than golden -- that does not befit
imitators of Greek manners.

2 'But there was another one, who wore
silk and walked around in brazen shoes!' Well, worthily so: in order that his
bacchanalian attire might produce some clanging, he walked on cymbals! 3 But
if at that time Diogenes were still barking from his barrel, he would not have
trodden on him with muddy feet (the Platonic couches know what that is!). No,
Diogenes would have taken the whole Empedocles down to the recesses of the
Cloacinae. Thus the man who insanely considered himself a divinity would have saluted,
as a god, first his sisters, then men.

(4.8)1 Such clothing therefore, that estranges
from nature and modesty, deserves sharply fixing gazes, pointing fingers, and exposing
nods. 2 Really, if with Menandrean luxury a man can be trailing a
refined dress, may he hear close by the words the comic author heard: 'What is this madman spoiling a splendid
cloak?'

3 But now that the eyebrow of censorial watchfulness
has disappeared, how much ground for criticism does the lack of distinction
provide? 4 <You may see> freedmen in the attire of knights, slaves
loaded with floggings in that of nobility, captives in that of freeborn,
bumpkins in that of city dwellers, buffoons in that of men of the forum, citizens
in that of soldiers. The corpse-bearer, the pimp, and the trainer of
gladiators: they dress like you.

(4.9)1 Turn to women too. There you may see
what Severus Caecina impressed on the Senate: matrons appearing in public
without stoles. 2 Under the decrees of augur Lentulus, those who had
dismissed themselves this way were punished as if for sexual misbehaviour,
since the garment that was the witness and guard of dignity, had been felt to
be an impediment to practice fornication and so had sedulously been moved into
disuse by some women. 3 But now, committing lechery against themselves,
making themselves more easily accessible, they have renounced the stole, the
linen garb, the rustling bonnet, the hairy head-dress, yes, even the litters
and portable chairs, in which they had been kept private and apart even in
public.

4 But some extinguish their proper lights, while
others kindle lights that are not theirs. 5 Look at the whores, those market-places
of public lusts, look at these 'rubbers' too, and even if you had better turn
your eyes away from such infamies of publicly slaughtered chastity, yet just
look from above and you will see they are matrons!

(4.10)1 And when the overseer of latrines fans
her silken gown, and comforts with necklaces her neck that is less pure than
the place itself, and uses bracelets (which, as parts of what was given to
brave men, even matrons would indiscreetly have taken in possession) to insert
her hands that are guilty of every shameful deed, and fits on her maculate leg
a white or reddish shoe, then why do you not look at these garments?

2 Or why do you not look at those other garments
that in their novel dress falsely claim religion? For it is for entirely white
clothing and for the sign of the head-band and the privilege of the bonnet that
people are initiated into Ceres; it is for the opposite affection of dark dress
and a gloomy covering upon the head, that people flee into the mountains of
Bellona; and the (opportunity of) wrapping with a broader, purple tunic and of
taking on a Galatic, red mantle commends Saturn (to others).

3 When this pallium itself, more carefully arranged,
with sandals in Greek fashion, flatters Aesculapius, how much more should you
accuse it and press upon it with your eyes, as it is guilty of something that
is simple and unaffected, but it is nonetheless superstition.

4 However, as soon as it dresses this wisdom that
rejects all vain superstitions, then without any doubt the pallium is august
above all clothing of gods or goddesses, the priestly mark of distinction above
all caps and tokens. 5 So lower your eyes, I counsel you, and show
respect for what is the renouncer of, meanwhile, this one error of yours.

(5.1)1 'But,' you will say, 'thus <we> move from the toga to
the pallium?'
Why not, if we also moved from diadem and sceptre? Did Anacharsis change otherwise,
when he preferred philosophy to the kingship of Scythia? 2 Even if there are no signs of a change for the better, the
dress has something that it brings about.

3 First, as to the simple putting
on of the pallium, it is absolutely not bothersome. 4 Indeed, there is
no need of a specialist, who, the day before use, forms the plies at the
beginning and leads them in pleats, assigning the whole formation of the
contracted umbo to the custody of the pincers; who, at daybreak, having
first shortened the tunic (which had better been woven at a moderate length!)
with a belt, checks the umbo again and if anything has gone out of the
track, rearranges it, lets a part of the garment hang down on the left, draws
back from the shoulders the surrounding part (from which stem the foils), with
its folds now ending, and leaving free the right shoulder piles it on the left
shoulder yet again, with another mass of folds destined for the back, thereby
imposing a burden upon the man.

(5.2)1 Now I will interrogate your conscience:
how do you feel in a toga: dressed or oppressed? Is it like wearing clothes or
bearing them? 2 If you deny, I will follow you home, and I will see what
you hasten to do right after the threshold. No other garment is taken off with
such relief as the toga!

3 We say nothing about the shoes, that special
torture of the toga, that most impure covering of the feet, and a false one
too. For who would not be better off stiffening barefoot in heat or cold, than
fetter-footed in shoes? 4 Sure, a great support for walking has been
foreseen by Venetian shoemaker-workshops in the form of effeminate boots!

(5.3)1 But there is nothing so convenient as
the pallium, even if it is double, as that of Crates. On no occasion there is a
waste of time in dressing, for all the effort it takes consists in loosely
covering oneself. 2 This may be done in one circumjection, that is on no
occasion beyond human power: all of man is covered at once. It may willingly
leave the shoulder bare or include it; for the rest it rests on the shoulder,
holding up nothing around, tying nothing around, not caring whether the folds
are reliable; it is easily arranged and easily rearranged; even when it is taken
off, it is not handed over to some rack. 3 If any undergarment is worn
beneath it, the torture of a belt is absent. If any footwear is put on, it is
of the purest form, or the feet remain bare, which keeps them more virile than
in shoes.

(5.4)1 So much in defence of the pallium, in so
far as you libelled it by name. But now it makes an appeal on account of its
activity.

2 'I owe nothing to the forum,' it says, 'nothing to the Campus Martius, nothing
to the Senate-house. I do not watch for a magistrate's function, do not occupy any platform
for speakers, do not attend to the governor's office; I do not smell the gutters,
nor adore the bar in court, nor wear out benches, nor disturb proceedings, nor
bark pleas; I do not act as a judge, a soldier, or a king: I have withdrawn
from public life. 3 My only activity concerns myself; I do not have any
care, except for this: to have no care. A better life can be enjoyed in
seclusion than out in the open.

4 Oh, you will denounce it for laziness, for
"one has to live for one's
fatherland, empire, and state"! But the following thought <also>
used to count: "no-one is born for another, being destined to die for
oneself." 5 By all means, when we come to the Epicuruses and Zeno's, "wisdom" is your
qualification for all these teachers of retreat, which they sanctified with the
name of the highest and unique pleasure.

(5.5)1 However, to some extent it will also be
possible for me to be of public benefit. At every threshold or altar I am used
to commend moral medicines, which more easily confer good health upon public
affairs, states and empires than whatever you do. 2 For if I may proceed
to deliver sharp words against you,

more harm has been brought upon the state by togas
than by cuirasses.

3 Indeed, I do not flatter any vices, do not spare
any old dirt or any scab. I apply the branding-iron to the desires that induced
M. Tullius to buy a round table of citrus-wood for 500,000 sestertii, that
induced Asinius Gallus to dispense twice this price for a table from the same
Mauretania -- gosh, at what huge sums did they estimate those blotches in wood!
--, and that likewise induced Sulla to have dishes constructed of a hundred
pounds. 4 But I really fear the scales here will be small, when
Drusillanus (although merely a slave of Claudius), is fabricating a plate of
five hundred pounds. Maybe this was indispensable for the tables mentioned
above... If they built a workshop for it, so they ought to have built a dining-room
too.

(5.6)1 I equally drive the lancet into the
harshness that induced Vedius Pollio to throw his slaves before the murenas to
feed on. What a novel delight of cruelty: terrestrial animals without teeth,
claws, or horns! 2 Forcing fish to become wild beasts, this is what he
wanted, and of course the fish was to be cooked straight away, so that in their
entrails he himself might have a taste of his slaves' bodies too.

3 I will put my knife into the gluttony that first
induced Hortensius the orator to be able to kill a peacock for the sake of
food; that first induced Aufidius Lurco to blemish bodies by stuffing them and
to endow them with a false taste by means of packed foodstuff; that induced
Asinius Celer to purchase the victuals of a single mullet for six thousand
sestertii; that induced the actor Aesopus to use similarly precious birds (all
singing and speaking species!) to stock up a dish of 100,000 sestertii; that
induced his son, after such a delicacy, to be able to desire something costlier
still. 4 For he ingested pearls (expensive even by name), I believe lest
he enjoyed more of a beggar's
dinner than his father.

(5.7)1 I say nothing about Neros, Apiciuses,
and Rufuses. I will administer a laxative to the impurity of Scaurus, the dice
of

Curius, the drunkenness of Antonius. And mind you:
these were merely a few toga-wearers out of many, the sort of men you will not
easily find with the pallium. 2 This purulence of the state -- who will
draw it forth and cleanse it, except a sermon dressed in the pallium?

(6.1)1 "With speech," it is said, "the wisest of
medicines, you convinced me." 2 Yes, but even when articulation
rests, either reduced by lack of eloquence or withheld by diffidence (for life
is content even with a tongueless philosophy), the very dress speaks aloud!
Thus, then, a philosopher is audible as long as he is visible. 3 Just by
showing up I make vices feel embarrassed. Who does not suffer in witnessing his
rival? Whose eyes can withstand a person whom his mind could not? It is a great
benefit of the pallium, when just the thought of it makes bad morals blush at
least.

(6.2)1 Now let philosophy see of what use she
is. For with me she is not the only one; I have other arts that are of public
benefit! 2 I dress the first teacher of letters, the first unraveller of
the voice, the first sandman of numbers, the grammarian, the rhetor, the
sophist, the doctor, the poet, the maker of music, the observer of what is
starred, the watcher of what is winged. All liberality of arts is covered by my
four tips.

3 These stand below the Roman knights, certainly.
But take all ignominy of the master of fighting and the gladiators: they perform
in toga! This then, surely, will be the outrage in the maxim "from toga to
pallium"!'

4 But these are words of the pallium. I will go
further and also grant it communication with that divine sect and discipline! 5
Rejoice, pallium, and exult! A better philosophy has deigned you worthy,
from the moment that it is the Chrístian whom you started to dress.